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JD.com Makes a Tasty Alibaba Appetizer

The planned IPOs of Alibaba and JD.com give investors a decision to make on how to bet on the future of Chinese e-commerce. Heard on the Street columnists Aaron Back, Alex Frangos and Abheek Bhattacharya debate the pros and cons of these two companies.

JD is China's second-largest e-commerce platform and plans to go public in the U.S., likely ahead of Alibaba's landmark IPO, which might raise $20 billion. JD's sights are lower: about $1.7 billion. JD is set to benefit from trends that could conceivably hurt Alibaba, making it a diversification play in China's e-commerce scene.